Friday, 12 July 2013

The first walkabout: behind the house

Walkabout, in the Australian aboriginal sense (not in the British sense) means short periods of wandering in the Bush. As I understand it (and my understanding is very limited), the aboriginals of Australia would take panned and unplanned leaves from their work (or 'regular life') and go into the wild for days sometimes. This served several purposes but I think the most critical was integrating or reintegrating oneself with one's surroundings. They would sometimes go for days just walking around and living off nature.

That is not what I tried to (or plan to) do. I just walked around looking at the things around me, trying to appreciate them. And I plan to do it more, walkabout, runabout, cycleabout. Here's what I got in the first walkabout. These are from a small (but wild) trail behind my house which goes into some fields and crosses a small stream to reach a road and rail line.

the short walk behind the house

getting close

the sun and the shade

the bridge on the small cold and clear stream

an electric pole

an eclectic pole

the yellow landscape

between the field and the road: beautiful and ignored

looking back

Since, walkabout are ideally supposed to be unplanned, I can't promise when I would be back with the next one. But hopefully soon.